The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. The proliferation of local, regional, and global networks such as the Internet has availed a sea of information to society. These networking technologies have expanded to increasingly include wireless and mobile technologies. Through these networks, information can be downloaded to desktop systems, wireless systems, mobile systems, etc. For example, information available via the Internet can now be downloaded onto mobile wireless units, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, etc. One such technology facilitating the transfer of Internet content to and from wireless devices is the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which integrates the Internet and other networks with wireless network platforms. Generally, WAP is a set of protocols that accounts for characteristics and functionality of both Internet standards and standards for wireless services. It is independent of wireless network standards, and is designed as an open standard. WAP bridges the gap between the wireline Internet paradigm and the wireless domain, to allow wireless device users to enjoy the benefits of the Internet across both platforms.
Second generation wireless service, often referred to as 2G wireless service, is a current wireless service based on circuit-switched technology. 2G systems, such as Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Personal Communications Services (PCS), use digital radio technology for improved quality and a broader range of services over first generation mobile technologies. 3G, or third generation, refers to a set of digital technologies that promises improvements in capacity, speed and efficiency by deploying new packet-based transmission methodologies between terminals and the network. Users of 3G devices and networks will have access to multimedia services such as video-on-demand, video conferencing, fast web access and file transfer. Existing and future services are, and will continue to be, provided by network service operators who make services and applications available to mobile device users via the network.
With the introduction of new mobile services such as WAP, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), calendar and contact synchronization, as well as a multitude of other possibilities, the number of servers and portals providing services for mobile Internet terminals continues to expand. Further, there is an increasing number of features associated with these services, such as support for multimedia, location-based services, electronic payments, etc. Thus, new terminals supporting new network technologies and mobile Internet services will continuously be taken into use, often as replacement devices for existing subscribers. The new terminals will increasingly require new or updated configuration settings before they can successfully connect to the network servers that offer applications over the network.
However, mobile terminals are by nature limited devices. They typically have limited memory, storage, and processing, capabilities. Therefore, mobile devices do not include all of the components required to access new or upgraded services that may be available on the network. When a mobile user wants to utilize new services available on the network, the terminal must be configured to use those new services. Configuring a terminal to use a service on a network is generally referred to as “provisioning” the terminal. Provisioning may be performed upon initial setup of a mobile device, or may also be performed to upgrade services and applications already being used at that mobile device.
One traditional provisioning methodology in use today requires that a retail establishment provision the terminal for the user. This, however, is inconvenient for the user. Further, if the user decided to purchase a different terminal or upgrade services, the user is forced to return to the dealer to provision, or re-provision the terminal. More recent and advanced provisioning systems have made it possible to allow the user to initiate provisioning from the device. For example, a user may manually initiate provisioning from the device to be provisioned. Further, remote servers may instigate a communications session with a provisioning server device, and provide the provisioning server with provisioning information. For example, two existing standards for remote configuration of terminals are the WAP provisioning protocol and the SyncML device management protocol. However, both of these standards assume that components required to be configured are already existing on the mobile terminal. Other systems focus solely on the delivery of data objects to the mobile terminal.
Existing methodologies for provisioning mobile terminals thus currently involve multiple actions and multiple interfaces to the network service providing the application. This complicates provisioning, particularly where new service and utility network elements increasingly proliferate the networks.
Accordingly, there is a need in the network communications industry to unify various provisioning procedures in a common network system, in order to expedite and simplify the provisioning procedures for the network services providing applications. The present invention solves these and other shortcomings of the prior art, and offers numerous advantages over prior art provisioning systems and methodologies.